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I heard about some children's ministry leaders deciding to blog this week about Orange principles.  The idea started with Kenny Conley and I'm jumping in to share my thoughts as well.  If you're interested, you can follow the conversation through the twitter hashtag, #orangeweek.

If you haven't heard about Orange, you can read about Orange here

Like everyone else, I'll blog about the Orange Essentials each day.  You can read a much better description of them than I could ever write, here.  Today will be about Leveraging Influence.

Leverage Influence

Leveraging Influence is all about creating opportunities for kids and students to serve and experience personal ministry.  This essential is extremely important for students.  Anyone who has ever been on a service trip knows how powerful that experience can be.  There are many reasons for that, but one of them is that we get away and experience personal ministry in a way we probably had not experienced before.  We seem to inevitably connect with Jesus as we serve for Jesus.  For students this is critical because they are at a stage of life where their faith has to become their own, and not just their parent's.  They have to know they are the church as opposed to just attending or preparing for when they will be adults.  

Two of my most pivotal moments in my faith journey came while I was on service trips as a student.  For years I had attended church and learned a ton about the Bible.  But, until I served, I never really thought through what I believed or put it into practice that much.  I think those opportunities helped me see God's heart for people and that changed how I saw God and how I wanted to live.

We can't forget the importance of leveraging influence for children as well.  CCC Kids could probably get a lot better in this area, but right now the way we help elementary kids experience personal ministry is through:

• Simple applications of the teaching that challenge them to serve someone
• November focus on supporting a need through providing resources
• December focus on supporting a need through giving financially

Our curriculum provider, 252 Basics, provides ideas for the November & December focuses and we use those or do something similar.  

How are you helping children leverage their influence?

I heard about some children's ministry leaders deciding to blog this week about Orange principles.  The idea started with Kenny Conley and I'm jumping in to share my thoughts as well.  If you're interested, you can follow the conversation through the twitter hashtag, #orangeweek.

If you haven't heard about Orange, you can read about Orange here

Like everyone else, I'll blog about the Orange Essentials each day.  You can read a much better description of them than I could ever write, here.  Today will be about Reactivating the Family.

Reactivate the Family

Reactivating the Family means we must acknowledge the parent's role as the primary spiritual leaders for their children and encourage and equip them in that role.  In talking about Elevating Community, I mentioned how much harder it is to develop a children's ministry around strong community.  The same is true about family.  It's a challenge to actively partner with parents but if we really believe God has given them the primary responsibility, then helping them is how we can be the most effective.  Hear are some things we do to partner with families:

Drive Time Cards
These are cards we create that let preschool parents know what their child learned that morning and it gives them ideas for how they can continue those conversations at home.  

Parent Child Dedication
In many ways, Parent Child Dedication is a first step in building a partnership between CCC and parents.  It's much more than just a public commitment because we do everything possible to equip parents for the journey they are beginning.

Kindergarten Confidential
Kindergarten Confidential is an event for kids going into Kindergarten and their parents are invited as well. It is an orientation to the elementary environments at CCC and gives us a chance to communicate with parents about everything we do in elementary and how we want to partner with them.

KidStuf
The whole reason we do KidStuf is so parents and kids can share an experience that ties in to what kids will be learning all month.  The hope is that it will be a launching point for conversations at home throughout the month.  It's also a great opportunity for us to communicate directly to elementary parents monthly. 

God Time / Fridge Door Cards
These are cards provided by reThink, our curriculum provider, that let parents know what their child learned in Discovery Island and they have ideas parents can use at home throughout the week with their children.

Family Times Virtue Packs
Family Times Virtue Packs equip parents with easy to use tools to make the most of everyday moments together.  We do not have them available at CCC, but we regularly point parents to the website where they can purchase a subscription – www.familytimes.org 

Dive In
Dive In is a unique 45 minute presentation where parents and children, grades K-5, can learn what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  Dive In is designed to help parents lead their children in those important conversations.

Of all that stuff, I think the relationships we build with parents and the conversations that happen within those relationships might be the most important.  We can provide all kinds of programs and resources, but nothing is better than forging a relationship that allows the church and the parents to work closely together in raising children in faith and character.

How does your church partner with families?

I heard about some children's ministry leaders deciding to blog this week about Orange principles.  The idea started with Kenny Conley and I'm jumping in to share my thoughts as well.  If you're interested, you can follow the conversation through the twitter hashtag, #orangeweek.

If you haven't heard about Orange, you can read about Orange here

Like everyone else, I'll blog about the Orange Essentials each day.  You can read a much better description of them than I could ever write, here.  Today will be about Elevating Community.

Elevate Community

Community is our church's name, so it's core to who we are.  We believe that life change happens best within the context of community.  But, in children's ministry there are other things that compete with our efforts to elevate community.  Below I'll outline some barriers we experienced in elevating community, and then talk about why it's important to fight through those barriers:

Simplicity
Community complicates things.  In our elementary environment, it would be a lot easier to welcome the kids, and each week divide them up evenly among our leaders and work through the curriculum.  Putting them in specific groups, with specific leaders and specific peers is difficult and adds a ton of administrative work.  

Recruiting
To elevate community, we need small group leaders who will serve every week in elementary, who will invest in children outside of Sunday morning and who will build relationships with parents.  It's a lot harder to find people who will do all of that than it is to find people who will show up on Sunday and work through some activities.

Parent Commitment
If we only asked parents to drop off their kids while they attended service that wouldn't require much commitment at all.  In fact, it's a blessing to the parents.  Elevating community means asking parents to bring their child to the same service each week and encourage their child's relationship with their small group leader.  Parents have more than enough stress, responsibility and not enough time so asking them to commit to more is difficult.

I realize I just did the worst job at selling the idea of elevating community.  While there are a ton of barriers, it's completely worth it.  It is true that community is more important the older a child gets, and therefore isn't as important when they are young.  The problem is, you can't flip a switch when they're 12 and provide other people in their life they can trust.  That has to be established over time, and you can never start early enough.  After fighting through those barriers we have seen greater community on Sunday mornings and heard more stories from parents about how it's impacting their child at home as well.